DESCRIPTION

Use git stash when you want to record the current state of the
working directory and the index, but want to go back to a clean
working directory. The command saves your local modifications away
and reverts the working directory to match the HEAD commit.

The modifications stashed away by this command can be listed with
git stash list, inspected with git stash show, and restored
(potentially on top of a different commit) with git stash apply.
Calling git stash without any arguments is equivalent to git stash save.
A stash is by default listed as "WIP on branchname …​", but
you can give a more descriptive message on the command line when
you create one.

The latest stash you created is stored in refs/stash; older
stashes are found in the reflog of this reference and can be named using
the usual reflog syntax (e.g. stash@{0} is the most recently
created stash, stash@{1} is the one before it, stash@{2.hours.ago}
is also possible). Stashes may also be referenced by specifying just the
stash index (e.g. the integer n is equivalent to stash@{n}).

OPTIONS

Save your local modifications to a new stash and roll them
back to HEAD (in the working tree and in the index).
The <message> part is optional and gives
the description along with the stashed state. For quickly making
a snapshot, you can omit both "save" and <message>, but giving
only <message> does not trigger this action to prevent a misspelled
subcommand from making an unwanted stash.

If the --keep-index option is used, all changes already added to the
index are left intact.

If the --include-untracked option is used, all untracked files are also
stashed and then cleaned up with git clean, leaving the working directory
in a very clean state. If the --all option is used instead then the
ignored files are stashed and cleaned in addition to the untracked files.

With --patch, you can interactively select hunks from the diff
between HEAD and the working tree to be stashed. The stash entry is
constructed such that its index state is the same as the index state
of your repository, and its worktree contains only the changes you
selected interactively. The selected changes are then rolled back
from your worktree. See the “Interactive Mode” section of
git-add[1] to learn how to operate the --patch mode.

The --patch option implies --keep-index. You can use
--no-keep-index to override this.

list [<options>]

List the stashes that you currently have. Each stash is listed
with its name (e.g. stash@{0} is the latest stash, stash@{1} is
the one before, etc.), the name of the branch that was current when the
stash was made, and a short description of the commit the stash was
based on.

The command takes options applicable to the git log
command to control what is shown and how. See git-log[1].

show [<stash>]

Show the changes recorded in the stash as a diff between the
stashed state and its original parent. When no <stash> is given,
shows the latest one. By default, the command shows the diffstat, but
it will accept any format known to git diff (e.g., git stash show
-p stash@{1} to view the second most recent stash in patch form).
You can use stash.showStat and/or stash.showPatch config variables
to change the default behavior.

pop [--index] [-q|--quiet] [<stash>]

Remove a single stashed state from the stash list and apply it
on top of the current working tree state, i.e., do the inverse
operation of git stash save. The working directory must
match the index.

Applying the state can fail with conflicts; in this case, it is not
removed from the stash list. You need to resolve the conflicts by hand
and call git stash drop manually afterwards.

If the --index option is used, then tries to reinstate not only the working
tree’s changes, but also the index’s ones. However, this can fail, when you
have conflicts (which are stored in the index, where you therefore can no
longer apply the changes as they were originally).

When no <stash> is given, stash@{0} is assumed, otherwise <stash> must
be a reference of the form stash@{<revision>}.

apply [--index] [-q|--quiet] [<stash>]

Like pop, but do not remove the state from the stash list. Unlike pop,
<stash> may be any commit that looks like a commit created by
stash save or stash create.

branch <branchname> [<stash>]

Creates and checks out a new branch named <branchname> starting from
the commit at which the <stash> was originally created, applies the
changes recorded in <stash> to the new working tree and index.
If that succeeds, and <stash> is a reference of the form
stash@{<revision>}, it then drops the <stash>. When no <stash>
is given, applies the latest one.

This is useful if the branch on which you ran git stash save has
changed enough that git stash apply fails due to conflicts. Since
the stash is applied on top of the commit that was HEAD at the time
git stash was run, it restores the originally stashed state with
no conflicts.

clear

Remove all the stashed states. Note that those states will then
be subject to pruning, and may be impossible to recover (see
Examples below for a possible strategy).

drop [-q|--quiet] [<stash>]

Remove a single stashed state from the stash list. When no <stash>
is given, it removes the latest one. i.e. stash@{0}, otherwise
<stash> must be a valid stash log reference of the form
stash@{<revision>}.

create

Create a stash (which is a regular commit object) and return its
object name, without storing it anywhere in the ref namespace.
This is intended to be useful for scripts. It is probably not
the command you want to use; see "save" above.

store

Store a given stash created via git stash create (which is a
dangling merge commit) in the stash ref, updating the stash
reflog. This is intended to be useful for scripts. It is
probably not the command you want to use; see "save" above.

DISCUSSION

A stash is represented as a commit whose tree records the state of the
working directory, and its first parent is the commit at HEAD when
the stash was created. The tree of the second parent records the
state of the index when the stash is made, and it is made a child of
the HEAD commit. The ancestry graph looks like this:

.----W
/ /
-----H----I

where H is the HEAD commit, I is a commit that records the state
of the index, and W is a commit that records the state of the working
tree.

EXAMPLES

Pulling into a dirty tree

When you are in the middle of something, you learn that there are
upstream changes that are possibly relevant to what you are
doing. When your local changes do not conflict with the changes in
the upstream, a simple git pull will let you move forward.

However, there are cases in which your local changes do conflict with
the upstream changes, and git pull refuses to overwrite your
changes. In such a case, you can stash your changes away,
perform a pull, and then unstash, like this:

When you are in the middle of something, your boss comes in and
demands that you fix something immediately. Traditionally, you would
make a commit to a temporary branch to store your changes away, and
return to your original branch to make the emergency fix, like this:

If you mistakenly drop or clear stashes, they cannot be recovered
through the normal safety mechanisms. However, you can try the
following incantation to get a list of stashes that are still in your
repository, but not reachable any more: